A rising chorus from UN agencies on how food security, poverty, gender inequality and climate change can all be addressed by a radical transformation of our agriculture and food system. by Dr Mae-Wan Ho A fully referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS members’ website and is otherwise available for download here. Agriculture… Read more »

Last week Canadian Prime Minister Harper reportedly offered to make a deal with President Obama to get approval from the President for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. (Wait for it…) Apparently, Harper offered unspecified "joint action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector" in exchange for a pipeline that will… Read more »

The Lake District’s bid for World Heritage status shows just what a mess conservation is in. by George Monbiot But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realised…. — William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality. It’s the most celebrated… Read more »

Many of us who have been paying attention to the state of the world over the last half century have now begun to realize with growing horror that the progressive deterioration we have been tracking shows no signs of resolution. In fact, to some of us it looks as though there is no way to… Read more »

Lined up for free treatment I am a young Christian missionary doctor on the Island of Sumba in Eastern Indonesia. My work entails providing health and welfare to the indigenous village people who live in remote areas of East Sumba. Most are either Christian or Marupa; they are extremely poor and many have no support… Read more »

Why are almost all the trees that councils plant exotic species? by George Monbiot The differences can be stark and remarkable: native trees tend to harbour far more wildlife than exotic species. Indigenous oak species, for example – according to the table extracted from scientific papers by the Offwell Woodland and Wildlife Trust – harbour… Read more »

An aerial view of a goat farm in the desert outside Dubai, a landscape that would benefit from Tony Rinaudo’s farmer-managed natural regeneration technique. Courtesy Mayang. Tony Rinaudo has an astonishing theory about the vast and apparently lifeless desert wastes of the UAE. He hasn’t been here, mind, and his observations are based on examining… Read more »

Editor’s Note: As regular readers will know, I don’t agree 100% with everything I post to the site. The article below, for example, has somewhat of a focus on fossil-fuel-based fertiliser, as the means to increasing yields. But, I put this piece up anyway, as the statistical information it contains on plateauing yields is an… Read more »

Why the Revolution Must Start in America The unrest in the Middle East, the convulsions in Ivory Coast, the hunger sweeping across failed states such as Somalia, the freak weather patterns and the systematic unraveling of the American empire do not signal a lurch toward freedom and democracy but the catastrophic breakdown of globalization. The… Read more »

by Emily E. Adams, Earth Policy Institute Increasing global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), a heat-trapping gas, are pushing the world into dangerous territory, closing the window of time to avert the worst consequences of higher temperatures, such as melting ice and rising seas. Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, carbon emissions from burning… Read more »

by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute At the time of the Arab oil export embargo in the 1970s, the importing countries were beginning to ask themselves if there were alternatives to oil. In a number of countries, particularly the United States, several in Europe, and Brazil, the idea of growing crops to produce fuel… Read more »

A radical challenge to British conservation and its bizarre priorities. by George Monbiot Male capercaillie I’m writing this on the train home, after visiting two places in the north of England celebrated for their “wildness”. One of them is Ennerdale in the Lake District, now officially known as Wild Ennerdale, a valley in which the… Read more »